"Charla" by Photojournalist

This evening, we were fortunate to have a presentation by a photojournalist who has worked for the AP for 30 years, and is now the Bureau Chief for El Salvador. Luis "La Muñeca" Romero came to the hotel to talk with us about the media in El Salvador, and to show us some of his photos.

Mr. Romero discussed the nature of the media during the civil war, explaining the means of communication that each side had, and describing how each side tried to "take out" the other side's media. From there, he was able to link the media of today to the war-time media, and discuss the changes that have taken place since the election of a more leftist president a year ago. Luis completed his talk by showing us a number of photos from the civil war, some of which were unearthed from archives only recently.

Then Luis's son, who is studying to become a journalist, showed us the documentary, "La Vida Loca," [The Crazy Life] about the gang situation in El Salvador. The French journalist who made the documentary, worked his way into the gangs and built up enough trust to be able to shoot the film, which is a graphic portrayal of the death, life, emotions and motives of the gang members. Unfortunately, and probably due to a misunderstanding, the gang members eventually killed the filmmaker.

Finally, we shot an interview of Mr. Romero for the video. Fascinating!